London Calling
1979
Their producer motivated the sessions by swinging ladders around the studio and pouring wine into the piano. The sleeve copies Elvis's first album.
★ 8.8
The Albums canon
Sourced and spun.
Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Browse all 542 records or filter by genre, artist, and year.
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
1977
Sid Vicious barely plays on it, and a record shop was taken to court over the word bollocks and won.
★ 8.5
Ramones
1976
Fourteen songs in twenty-nine minutes, recorded for about six thousand dollars. Nothing on it is longer than two and a half minutes.
★ 8.5
Double Nickels on the Dime
1984
Forty-five songs, most under two minutes, and the title is a joke about obeying the speed limit. D. Boon was dead within eighteen months.
★ 7.0
Let it Be
1984
They called it Let It Be mostly to annoy people. The songs run from a joke about answering machines to Westerberg howling that he is unsatisfied.
★ 6.9
This Year's Model
1978
Costello had been working as a computer operator two years earlier. The sleeve was printed deliberately off-center with the camera and tripod showing.
★ 6.7
Tim
1985
Tommy Ramone produced it, and the band got themselves banned from Saturday Night Live after one drunken appearance a few months later.
★ 6.3
My Aim is True
1977
Costello recorded it on days off from his job at a cosmetics factory, backed by an American bar band that included Huey Lewis.
★ 6.0
Rocket to Russia
1977
They were openly chasing a hit single and never got one. The harmonies come straight off the girl-group records they grew up on.
★ 5.9
American Idiot
2004
Someone stole the master tapes for the album they had just finished, so Green Day started over and wrote a punk rock opera instead.
★ 5.7
Los Angeles
1980
Ray Manzarek of the Doors produced it and played the organ, which is why a punk record has that particular keyboard on it.
★ 4.4
The Woods
2005
Sleater-Kinney have no bass player, only two guitars and drums, and here producer Dave Fridmann pushed the levels until everything distorts.
★ 4.3